It’s official: This TomKat’s starting another new life
Tom Cruise popped the question to Katie Holmes at the Eiffel Tower early Friday, then announced the news to the world – they’re getting married. No wedding date has been set, Cruise said: “We haven’t discussed that – one step at a time.”
The couple, who went public with their romance in April, often shared smiles and blushes during a Paris press conference to promote Cruise’s new film, “War of the Worlds.”
“Today is a magnificent day for me. I’m engaged to a magnificent woman,” the 42-year-old Cruise said.
The 26-year-old Holmes, who was wearing a massive diamond ring on her finger, didn’t speak to reporters.
Both actors have been busy dismissing media speculation their romance is a publicity stunt to promote their new films (Holmes co-stars in “Batman Begins”).
It would be the third marriage for Cruise and the first for Holmes. He was married to Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman; Holmes had been engaged to actor Chris Klein.
Whole lotta payin’ going on
A Mississippi judge has approved a divorce settlement between Jerry Lee Lewis and his sixth wife, Kerrie Lynn McCarver Lewis.
“It’s been a long day, and it’s been an expensive day,” Lewis said outside the courthouse Wednesday.
Lewis, whose hits include “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On,” married McCarver in 1984. They have an 18-year-old son, Jerry Lee Lewis III.
The 69-year-old rocker will keep his 40-acre ranch near Nesbit in north Mississippi, where the couple lived.
Bo knows stereotyping
Three weeks after being defeated by Carrie Underwood in the finals of “American Idol,” Bo Bice says he’s happy he lost.
“People ask me, ‘What were you thinking while you stood there waiting for them to announce the winner?’ ” Bice says in the issue of Rolling Stone magazine on newsstands Friday.
The answer? “Please, God, don’t let me win this thing.”
“The label ‘American Idol’ was not for me,” adds the Southern rocker. “I’m not a pop person. It would have been harder to play my kind of music if I had won.”
Another butt of Dave’s jokes
Former President Clinton‘s visit to the “Late Show” on Thursday gave David Letterman someone to trade heart surgery stories with.
Clinton had his heart bypass last September. Letterman’s surgery took place in January 2000.
Letterman claimed he was told that members of his cardio team were smoking during his surgery.
“Well, I hope you don’t have a filter in your chest,” Clinton said.
Replied Letterman: “I may have a butt in there.”
Here’s hoping wonders never cease
Singer Stevie Wonder has arranged to pay the funeral expenses for five children who were killed in a Philadelphia row house fire.
Wonder was heartbroken after hearing about the blaze and wanted to do something to help the family, said his publicist, Ira Tucker.
“I don’t think he’s ever done anything like this before,” Tucker said. “It’s just good that something can be lifted from them.”
The birthday bunch
Musician Paul McCartney is 63. Movie critic Roger Ebert is 63. Actress Isabella Rossellini is 53. Actress Carol Kane is 53. Singer Nathan Morris (Boyz II Men) is 34. Country singer Blake Shelton is 29. Actress Renee Olstead (“Still Standing”) is 16.